Radiohead Accusees Stayed (Sorry for the Legal Jargon)…
Five summers ago, Radiohead were scheduled to play their last North American show on The King of Limbs tour at Toronto’s Downsview Park. You may remember a stage collapsing during the afternoon setup, tragically killing drum technician Scott Johnson. The English band have yet to return to these parts while a lawsuit from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour was pending against Live Nation, an engineer and the contracted construction company.
The case has dragged on so long that Radiohead have gone through an another new album cycle and reissued OK Computer in commemoration of its 20th anniversary. Now a judge has ruled that all “the inordinate delays”, as per The Canadian Press, “had violated the rights of those charged to a timely hearing” and so everything has been stayed. Or in layman’s terms, they’re off the hook until further notice…probably for good.
Huh.
Listen, no one deserves a fate like that of Johnson. He was only doing his job under what were most likely unsafe conditions, but something he had done innumerable times without thinking of any consequences. The sad moral of the story is if you clog up the system and prolong things long enough, you can literally get away with murder.
If you’re a Radiohead fan living anywhere within the Greater Golden Horseshoe vicinity, this pro-shot performance of them at Osheaga 2016 is about the closest you’ll get see them live again, so enjoy.